So I took your advice and made the following changes:

            my %wanted;
            my %validfile = map +($_ => 1), qw/ dir file link /;
            my %validupdate = map +($_ => 1), qw/ mode owner group /;
            for (keys %{ $config{$test}{$tester} })
            {
                my($filetype, $updatetype) = split /-/, $_, 2;
                unless ($validfile{$filetype} && $validupdate{$updatet
+ype})
                {
                    warn "Unexpected directive '$_'";
                    next;
                }
                $wanted{$filetype}{$updatetype} = $config{$test}{$test
+er}{$_};
            }

[...]
            sub wanted_c
            {
                print "wanted_c is working on $_\n";
                my %wanted_prev = %wanted;
                my $wanted_here;
                stat($_);
                if (-d $_) {$wanted_here = $wanted_prev{'dir'}}
                elsif (-l $_) {$wanted_here = $wanted_prev{'link'}}
                elsif (-f $_) {$wanted_here = $wanted_prev{'file'}}
                else {return;}
                return unless $wanted_here;  # nothing to change
                print Dumper($wanted_here);
                if (defined $wanted_here->{'mode'})
                {
                    change_mode($_, $wanted_here->{'mode'})           
+          }
                if (defined $wanted_here->{'owner'})
                {
                    change_owner($_, $wanted_here->{'owner'});
                }
                if (defined $wanted_here->{'group'})
                {
                    change_group($_, $wanted_here->{'group'});
                }
            }
[download]

The changes work like a charm. I have one problem and one question though. The problem is that I keep getting a diagnostic warning:

Variable "%wanted" will not stay shared at permmy7.pl line 317 (#1)
[download]

I am a little unsure about how best to go about getting rid of it. Can't _really_ see an easy way to sub something out...

The question I have is, previously I was having issues with the file/directory/link being checked by the wanted_c function hitting only one if and then returning, so I had to toss in some recurssion - why doesn't that problem occur with the above code? I am just not seeing it and it is bugging me. It works and I am thankful for that but I want to know _why_ it works... Thanks in advance.

-Shane

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